The Path of Virtue

by TheMessengerofChaos

After finally defeating Yugi Moto and reclaiming his title as World Champion, Seto Kaiba is givin a challenge by a man known as Horus, a mamber of an eliete dueling orginazation known as The Saints Yugi and his frends tag along. After seeing Kaiba defeat

5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Intense But Pure

Maximus walked over to a chair near the computer station. He reached into the inside pocket of a P-Coat draped over it. He pulled out a small plastic box, just like the one Horus had. This box however was gray and not gold and had studs lining it.

"It's my turn now." Maximus said. "I have a story of my own to tell, but I would prefer to duel first before telling it." He then turned his head and looked directly at Joey. "What do you say Joey, care for a friendly challenge?"

"I accept." came Joey's reply, "I came here to see what true master duelists are capable of and I plan to test out you guys."

With that both Joey and Maximus walked over to their respective sides of the dueling platform and took their places.

"Show me no mercy. For you shall receive none." Maximus said to his opponent

"You want it, you got it. Let's Duel!!!" Joey responded

In just a few seconds, the holographic projectors turned back on, and the Life Point counters for Joey and Maximus were set to 8000. Both players drew their 5 cards and the duel began. Maximus reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a quarter.

"Why don't we flip to see who goes first?" He said

"Fair enough." Joey responded "I'll call heads"

Maximus flipped the quarter up into the air. It fell back down onto the arena below. Both he and Joey looked at it and sure enough it was heads.

'OK, I'll start this off." Joey said as he drew his sixth card. "OK I'll start off by laying one card face down on the field, and summoning Gearfried the Iron Knight to the field."

Joey's face-down card materialized on the arena, and so did his monster, Gearfried. Gearfried was a knight with a suit of metal armor and a long metal lance built into his right arm. It stood at 1800 Attack points.

Maximus drew his sixth card as well. He looked at his cards intently for a few moments before making his move. "Not a bad start, but let's see how he holds up against this. I'll start by placing one card face down as well. And then I'll summon Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke to the field."

Maximus's card appeared just as Joey's did. Then his monster card materialized and out of the picture stepped a masked ninja with a white suit, green cloak and a pair of daggers in this hands. The ninja also had 1800 Attack points so it was an even match for Gearfried. An attack would have destroyed both monsters.

Maximus paused for a moment "I'll end my turn at that." He said

"My turn now." Joey said his face was full of focus. He saw a chance to do some real damage to Maximus. "Now I summon Goblin Attack Force."

At this there was a rumbling sound that sounded like footsteps. The steps grew louder and louder until eventually there appeared on Joey's field a mass of goblin warriors, each armed with spiked clubs and dressed in plate armor. The goblins had an attack strength of 2300, more than enough to destroy Maximus's ninja

"Go Goblin Attack Force!! Attack his Ninja!!" Joey shouted.

At once the mass of goblins charged forward and proceeded to club Maximus's ninja to death. The ninja shattered and Maximus dropped down to 7500 Life Points after the attack

"Not bad" he said "Not bad at all!"

Joey wasn't finished yet. "Gearfried, Attack him directly!!" Joey shouted. His knight jumped forward and swung his lance at Maximus.

"I don't think so. I'll activate the trap card Sakuretsu Armor. This little gadget will destroy your Gearfried before he can hit me." Maximus shouted and his trap card activated.

A suit of armor sprung forward and attached to Gearfried. As it clamped onto him, the knight screamed out with pain as the armor began to glow. About 5 seconds later the armor exploded and destroyed Gearfried along with it.

Joey was a bit upset at this. "No! Gearfried" he exclaimed "It no big deal, at least I get his ninja. Now my goblins switch to defense mode and I'll end my turn."

"Joey's keeping his cool up there. He's going to need to stay focused if he wants to win this duel." Yugi said

"Very true, but we have no idea what Maximus is capable of pulling off up there. Joey still has to be careful." Tea responded

Upon hearing this, Yugi gave Tea another slightly displeased look. Tea didn't notice this time as she was focused on the duel. Meanwhile Maximus began his turn.

"That was just a warm-up, time to really get going." He said "This time around I'll set two cards facedown on the field and summon my good friend Marauding Captain."

Onto the field emerged the Marauding Captain. He was a warrior dressed in full plate armor except for his head which was uncovered. He held a long sword in each of his hands.

Maximus then spoke up. "As you probably know, the Marauding Captain has a special ability that allows me to special summon any monster from my hand with up to 4 stars. I'm going to choose one you might recognize. Say hello to Mystic Swordsman Level 2!"

Just as in Horus's duel the Mystic Swordsman appeared on the field with his purple armor and sword in hand.

"Time to declare my attack, Mystic Swordsman will attack your Goblins"

At this Joey froze. He considered using his face down card, Skull Dice, which would weaken the Swordsman's attack power, but he changed his mind since it would serve no use. His goblins were in defense mode and had 0 defense points. The Swordsman would still destroy it. Maximus's Swordsman ran forward, and swung his sword down onto the goblins. His slash sliced directly through the chests of the goblins. The entire mass was destroyed.

"Now Marauding Captain will attack directly." Maximus said.

With this the soldier also ran forward, raised both of his swords over his head and delivered a double slash that took 1200 life points away from Joey. After the attack Maximus's Swordsman began to glow just like Horus's dragon.

"Uh-Oh!" Joey said, "This is not good! I know what that light means."

"How very observant you are, Maximus replied." "Just like Horus the Black Flame Dragon, my Mystic Swordsman grows stronger when he destroys a monster in battle. Now my Level 2 Swordsman grows into a Level 4 Swordsman."

Once Maximus said this, the glow faded and his Swordsman grew. The Level 4 version of Mystic Swordsman was taller and older than the Level 2 version. If Level 2 was a boy of about 10 or 11 years of age, then Level 4 was a young man of about 17 years of age. His sword also grew. It grew from a single sword into a double-bladed sword that the Swordsman held in the centre. Its Attack Strength jumped from 900 to 1900 as well.

"This looks really bad guys." Tristan said

"Tell me about it." Tea added "Maximus's Swordsmen can evolve just like Horus's Dragons. Who knows what this can do, or even worse, what the next version he's got can do."

"Come on Joey! Keep fighting!" Yugi shouted from the stands

Joey drew his card; his face was full of relief. "Nothing like a Heart of the Cards moment to save my skin." He said. "Since you have two monsters and I have none I can special summon my Fiend Megacyber to the field without having to sacrifice anything first."

Joey's Fiend Megacyber was a large metal soldier. Its steps shook the arena floor as it materialized and walked onto the field. At 2200, it could beat either of Maximus's monsters.

"Now I think I'll make this hurt a bit more, I'll use my Skull Dice Trap Card and weaken your Swordsman."

Upon activation there appeared a small demon like figure with a large red, six sided die. He proceeded to throw it. The die jostled around the floor for a few bounces before landing on the number 4. This meant that Maximus's Swordsman would lose 400 Attack points for the rest of Joey's turn.

"A four eh?? I'll take it! Fiend Megacyber, attack his Mystic Swordsman." Joey shouted.

His monster jumped forward and threw a punch at Maximus's Swordsman. Just before impact however, the Marauding Captain jumped into the path of the punch and took the blow for Mystic Swordsman. The Captain tried to block with his swords but to no avail. He was destroyed and Maximus lost 1000 Life Points, leaving him with 6500.

Joey was confused "How come your Captain took the Blow?"

Maximus shook his head rather disappointingly. "Joey, have you forgotten Marauding Captain's Secondary ability?" He said "With him on the field you cannot attack any other Warrior type monster on my field except for him. Since my Swordsman is a Warrior, Marauding Captain protected him."

Joey slapped himself across the face "Rats!!! I totally forgot about that one."

"He's losing it guys. Joey's cracking!" Tristan reported "Stay Calm up there!"

Having lost some of his momentum, Joey resumed "Fine, I'll place one more card, Face Down and set one monster face-down and end my turn."

Maximus drew his card. He held the back of the card to Joey. The card, like all the others in Maximus's deck were cased in black sleeves with silver shields across the backs.

"I'll play the Magic Card called Reinforcement of the Army. This lets me search my deck for any Warrior monster with up to 4 stars and add it to my hand." He said. Maximus then pullout one card and showed it to Joey. "I think I'll go for another Mystic Swordsman Level 4." He declared as he shuffled his deck. "OK let's have some fun! I'll switch my Swordsman to Defense mode and activate the Trap Zero Gravity. This forces all face up monsters to switch battle positions."

There was a strange pulling on the platform on both sides and after a few seconds Joey's Fiend Megacyber assumed a crouch-blocking position and Maximus's Swordsman stood up ready to attack.

"Next I'll set one monster face-down on the field, and I'll activate the Magic of Book of Taiyou."

"Book of Taiyou? What's that??" Joey asked

A magical book appeared over top of Maximus's face-down monster. A bright light, almost like sunlight began to shine down from the book onto the card.

"The magic of the Book of Taiyou causes one face-down monster to flip up into attack mode." Maximus explained." So I'm using it on my face-down card, so I can flip it up and attack with it. And that card is none other than my other Mystic Swordsman Level 4."

"Hold on a minute!" Joey shouted "Don't you need to have Level 2 destroy a monster before it can become Level 4?"

At this question Maximus smiled. He then explained "Fortunately for me, the Mystic Swordsmen can all be summoned normally. The catch is that if I normal summon Level 4 or Level 6 I have to place it face-down first."

"So Maximus's deck is full of those Swordsmen guys and he has plenty of ways to get them on the field." Tea said

"Now to attack, I'll have one of my Swordsmen destroy your face down card first. And yes, I should tell you now, Level 4 has that same 'Destroys face-down monsters instantly' effect, so prepare for the Umbral Energy Blade."

Mystic Swordsman Level 4 jumped forward towards Joey's face down monster. He took one end of his sword and plunged it through the center of the card. The blade then became enveloped in a glow of black energy. When the glow was large enough the Swordsman removed his sword and the energy traveled into the hole left by the sword into the monster, destroying the card from the inside out.

"Now my other Swordsman will attack your Fiend Megacyber!" Maximus shouted.

At this the second Swordsman jumped forward and prepared to slash at Joey's monster. This time Joey was prepared.

"Not so fast Maximus!! Activate Magic Arm Shield!!"

Joey's trap sprung into action, revealing a set of extendable arms. The arms reached out and grabbed the Swordsman who destroyed Joey's face down card. The arms began to retract and pull the captured Swordsman into the path of the attacking Swordsman.

"Good play Joey, but I can't allow you to kill my Swordsmen so easily." Maximus said "I'll activate my other face-down card, Book of Moon."

A second magical book now appeared on the field just like the last one. This time however it was aimed at the captured Mystic Swordsman. The magical energy of this book caused Maximus's captured Swordsman to drop back into a crouching position and finally it disappeared into face-down position, Meanwhile the Swordsman continued it's attack, but since it was now forced to attack another face-down monster it once again plunged its sword down and created the same dark energy that destroyed the previous monster.

"If I didn't do something, both of my Swordsmen would have been destroyed." Maximus began "So I used my Book of Moon Magic Card to turn the captured one face down so it would get destroyed rather than both my Swordsmen. I'll end my turn by setting one card face down."

"Let's do this then." Joey said, once again he saw an opening to hurt Maximus. "I'll sacrifice my Fiend so I can summon Jinzo"

Joey's Fiend faded away and in its place stood the android Jinzo. He was a tall, lanky menacing looking robot with spikes lining his neck area.

"Jinzo's special effect renders all trap cards useless so he's going to blow your Swordsman away. Attack now!" Joey ordered

Maximus shot Joey a sly look and raised one of his eyebrows

"Who said this was a trap card?" Maximus replied "It's actually another Quick-Play Magic Card called Enemy Controller." After it's activation a small video-game controller appeared in Maximus's hands and the wire stretched out and into Jinzo.
"I think I'll have Jinzo switch to Defense position" Maximus stated and Jinzo was forced down into a blocking stance.

Joey, flustered by this turn of events looked like was losing his composure.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh No!! Not again!! Fine I end my turn" He said

"Joey's dueling well up there but Maximus has been able to counter all his moves." Yugi said

"Would you expect anything less from one of us?" Horus replied

Maximus drew his card. "Time to put a hurting on you Joey." He began "I'll start by playing Pot of Greed and drawing two more cards. Next I'll activate The Warrior Returning Alive. This will let me return my Marauding Captain to my hand. I will now summon the Marauding Captain, and with his effect I shall special Summon another Mystic Swordsman Level 2."

The Captain and the Swordsman both appeared on Maximus's field along side the Swordsman.

"I'll have Mystic Swordsman Level 4 attack Jinzo." Maximus declared and his Swordsman leaped forward and swung one end of his sword into Jinzo's chest. He then swung the second blade into Jinzo's stomach area and Jinzo shattered into pieces. "Now My Captain and my other Swordsman will both attack directly."

Just as before Marauding Captain delivered a double-overhead sword slash taking 1200 Life Points from Joey. He was now down to 5600. Mystic Swordsman Level 2 ran up to Joey and swung with his sword. Joey writhed in pain as his Life Points dropped to 4700. After Level 2 returned to position, Level 4 began to glow as he did before.

"With that, I shall end my turn." Maximus stated, "And now I shall introduce you to Mystic Swordsman Level 6."

The light faded and the Swordsman grew again. The Level 6 Swordsman was a fully grown man of about 23 years of age. He took the double edged sword and snapped it into two separate swords that he held crossed over each other. This Swordsman had an attack strength of 2300 points. Joey grew desperate. He needed to find a way to beat Maximus's Swordsman. He looked into his hand and saw a way to buy some time and maybe get one more turn to defeat the Swordsman.

"It's Neko Mane King!" Joey thought to himself. "If I put this face down and Maximus destroys this with his Swordsman, it will end his turn and buy me some time. It's worth a shot. So here goes. All right Maximus, I'll set one monster face-down and end my turn. Let's see you handle this one."

Maximus just smiled "You have no idea what you've just done." He said, "But now you'll find out. Mystic Swordsman Level 6 will attack your face-down monster, and yes he too has the destruction effect. So go!!! Umbrial Energy Blast!"

At this command Mystic Swordsman Level 6 raised his swords up in over his head. They began to glow with dark energy as Level 4's blade did earlier. He then swung his swords down in an X pattern and released a black energy wave directly at Joey's face-down card, shattering it instantly on impact. Shortly after there was a twinkle of lights rising from Joey's field aimed at the top of his deck

"Ha!! The jokes on you Maximus!" Joey proclaimed "You destroyed my Neko Mane King, and when it goes to the Graveyard by a card effect your turn ends right then and there."

"Oh really!" Maximus replied "Trouble is your monster isn't in the graveyard. I guess I should have told you but anytime Mystic Swordsman Level 6 destroys a monster with his effect, I can activate his secondary ability and return that monster to the top of my opponent's deck instead."

"Say WHAT!!!!!" Joey exclaimed, obviously he was not prepared to hear that news.

"Tell you what, I'll end my turn. Go ahead and draw if you don't believe me." Maximus proclaimed.

Joey drew his card. Sure enough it was the same Neko Mane King Maximus had destroyed.

"No way!!" Joey shouted "Well I'm not going down without a fight." I'll summon Alligator Sword and attack your Marauding Captain."

Joey's beast emerged onto the field and proceeded to jump at Marauding Captain and slash it with a sword. The Captain was destroyed and Maximus lost 300 Life Points leaving him with 6200.

"Next I'll set one card face down and end my turn." Joey said

Maximus drew his card. "Time to end this." he said. I'll start by Activating Mystical Space Typhoon and destroying your face-down card." As his Magic Card activated a gust of wind blew across the arena. This gust quickly became a spinning spiral cloud that made its way towards Joey's face-down card and swallowed it whole.

"No, My Negate Attack!" Joey said rather unhappily.

"It's not over yet." Maximus stated "Now I'll activate the Magic of Offerings to the Doomed and get rid of your Alligator."

When this card activated Joey's monster was surrounded by clouds of smoke and incense. The smoke quickly enveloped Alligator Sword completely and after a few seconds disappeared and Joey's monster was gone with it.

"Now I'll Summon Command Knight to the field, and her special ability gives all Warrior Monsters I control an extra 400 Attack Points."

As Maximus's Knight emerged onto the field, the blades of his two Swordsmen glowed deep red. Mystic Swordsman Level 2's Attack Points jumped to 1300, Level 6's to 2700 and Command Knight herself jumped from 1200 to 1600.

"Time to attack, I'll let Level 2 start it off." Maximus stated. His Swordsman ran forward again and delivered another painful slash to Joey, dropping him down to 3300 Life Points. "Now Command Knight will attack." At this the Command Knight jumped forward and unsheathed her sword in midair. She slashed Joey across the chest diagonally and once again Joey writhed in pain. He was now down to 1700 Life Points
"And for the Grand Finale, Mystic Swordsman Level 6 will now strike." Maximus said. When he gave this order Mystic Swordsman Level 6 jumped high into the air. He did a double front somersault in the air and as he descended he spun around in a circle swinging both of his swords in a wide arc. The swords hit Joey in the chest and stomach respectively. After this attack Joey's Life Points stood at 0.

Maximus looked over at him "And that my friend is game." He said